If I Can't Love Her
by danrdarrenc
Summary: Severus Snape reflects on his past and his relationship with Lily Evans. Oneshot, songfic based on "If I Can't Love Her" from the show "Beauty and the Beast".


It was a dark and stormy night at the end of July, and a man with long, greasy black hair sat in a living room of an old, rundown abode that he called home. His face wore an expression of deep thought and sorrow, as if he were remembering something unpleasant, while trying to figure out why it was so. Severus Snape stood up from the chair in which he was sitting and walked to the window to watch the rain fall from the sky. Severus turned as if to go back to his chair, but instead he vanished into thin air.

Severus reappeared outside a beautiful castle. He stared at the building and slowly walked up the path toward the castle that served as a school from September to June. When he reached the doors to the castle he turned and walked around the building to a grassy area that surrounded a lake. One hundred feet in front of the lake stood a white tomb. Severus walked, slowly, over to the tomb and, carefully, as though it were an egg that could break, touched it. As he stood there, hand on the tomb of the man he had murdered, Severus began to cry. He cried for himself; he cried for the headmaster of the school who now lay, cold and dead, enclosed in marble; Severus cried for all the things he had done, the good and the bad; but, above all, he cried for the one person who could have changed him, the one person for whom he would have gladly abandoned his silly notion of being a Death Eater – Lily Evans.

Severus sank to the cold, wet ground, his face drenched with a mix of tears and raindrops. He reached inside his long black robes as if he were going to take out his wand, but instead pulled out a piece of parchment, which looked as if it had been in that pocket for years. Severus stared at what he held in his hand and began to sob even harder.

"Oh, Lily. Dear Sweet, Lily. You meant the world to me," Severus yelled at the sky. He could not be heard over the howling winds and pouring rain that seemed to reflect what he was feeling inside. "You were the one person who would have been able to turn me to the other side. You were the one person who was kind to me at school and I pushed you away. Because of my stupid mistake when you tried to save me, I cursed myself to a life of torture. After that one afternoon you never saw the kindness in me anymore. You despised me. You never looked at me again. There was no way I could go on living.

"I joined the Death Eaters in the hopes that they would ease my pain. But I was wrong. The pain grew deeper, and I am responsible for your death. For that I will never forgive myself. I killed Albus Dumbledore because the pain was so deep. Oh, Lily, I am sorry for everything that I did to you and your family.

"You never knew that I was in love with you at school. You tried to be kind to me but I repaid you with harshness and revulsion. Every night I went back to my dorm and cried, especially after the day I pushed you away for good. That was the night I knew that I had no reason left in the world to live. I now return to the Death Eaters in the hope that they will put me out of my misery. I hope that you will greet me with open arms and that you will forgive me for everything I did and said to you. I will always love you, Lily Evans."

Severus stood up, took one last look at the castle he had called home for the last sixteen years, and vanished into thin air. As he turned into emptiness to apparate to what he knew was his death, one could see that there was no longer hatred and revulsion etched on Severus' face; there was something new now written on the once cold and hard face. There were no signs of the familiar expressions that face once held; all that was on that face now was sorrow, pain, and emptiness. Severus' face was one of someone who had suffered great pain in his life and blamed himself completely for all his problems.

As Severus disappeared from Hogwarts for good, a piece of parchment floated to the ground. Though the rain pounded it hard, one could see that there were words written on it – a poem of some sort:

And in my twisted face

There's not the slightest trace

Of anything that even hints of kindness

And from my tortured shape

No comfort, no escape

I see, but deep within is utter blindness

Hopeless

As my dream dies

As the time flies

Love a lost illusion

Helpless

Unforgiven

Cold and driven

To this sad conclusion

No beauty could move me

No goodness improve me

No power on earth, if I can't love her

No passion could reach me

No lesson could teach me

How I could have loved her and make her love me too

If I can't love her, then who?

Long ago I should have seen

All the things I could have been

Careless and unthinking, I moved onward

No pain could be deeper

No life could be cheaper

No point anymore, if I can't love her

No spirit could win me

No hope left within me

Hope I could have loved her and that she'd set me free

But it's not to be

If I can't love her

Let the world be done with me.

4


End file.
